Listening to your interview ... you really worried me. And I'm a fan. I'm a big fan of Warlords. But man ... your interview really put some fear into me. How do you guys have so many things that are unknown about the future of Warlords this deep into the cycle? And what do you mean when you say you will let the community decide whether you build new dungeons or scenarios? How exactly does that work and isn't that normally something that is well into development at this point? I reiterate, I'm a fan and I'm looking forward to Warlords ... but that interview definitely confused me ...

Listening to your interview ... you really worried me. And I'm a fan. I'm a big fan of Warlords. But man ... your interview really put some fear into me. How do you guys have so many things that are unknown about the future of Warlords this deep into the cycle? And what do you mean when you say you will let the community decide whether you build new dungeons or scenarios? How exactly does that work and isn't that normally something that is well into development at this point? I reiterate, I'm a fan and I'm looking forward to Warlords ... but that interview definitely confused me ...

Those are fair questions, but I assure you we have a clear direction and development pipeline for Warlords of Draenor. What you're referring to is the space we leave in our development plans to respond to popular community desires, concerns, etc. Raids, and to a lesser extent dungeons, require quite a bit of advanced preparation and production. They often contain unique boss models and environments; and new tiers of content introduce a lot of player progression that takes time to properly develop and test.

Scenarios are a little different. They don't require a ton of unique assets or itemization. What Tom was suggesting is that it's possible we'll have room in Warlords content patches to develop max-level scenarios, if the community strongly feels like they're lacking from the level-100 experience once we're deeper into the expansion's lifespan.

It's hard to fully anticipate how the community at large will feel at level 100 until people get there and spend some time doing max-level content. We always want to have some degree of flexibility to react to player sentiment at that stage. A good example of this would be the daily quest design introduced in 5.0. Our intent wasn't to add severe gating and mandatory daily chores for players of all types, and whether or not we should've foreseen that, it was certainly made clear to us once a large number of players reached level 90 and were starting to dive into raid progression.

To that end, there were many elements of Mists endgame that were adjusted over time as a result of player feedback, even though we still had a solid plan for each patch to move the story forward and introduce new tiers of content. But one piece of common negative feedback we saw was concerning the lack of new 5-player dungeons in Mists patches. That was something for which we didn't plan, and couldn't sacrifice art and design resources at the time to give those players what they wanted.

I don't want to put words in Tom's mouth, but his statements indicate our team's general recognition that a lot of players want new 5-player dungeons at max level deeper in the lifespan of an expansion.

In short, we've mapped out the road ahead for Warlords and know where we're going, but some of the pit stops we make along the way will be determined by popular community feedback once everyone is on the journey with us. :)

So, essentially, this leeway is for Blizzard to go ahead with their plans, regardless of player feedback (because please, don't try to insinuate that you didn't receive MOUNTAINS of feedback about how VP gear being gated behind dailies was counterintuitive).

Then, once people continue to complain and give feedback, you can make changes (like the Timeless Isle) and then proclaim "See, look, we listened!"

...sure you did. Just months after the fact.

As was stated during patch 5.4's development, the Timeless Isle was something of a test for offering open-world PvE content in a more open-ended fashion, less tied to questing and daily limits. Our goal wasn't to pretend that it was the answer to concerns about VP gates, but rather to make small strides in evolving the system while considering what leveling and endgame in Warlords could look like. And we've learned a lot from the Timeless Isle, both in terms of positives and negatives of its design, after watching people experience it and paying attention to their reactions over time.

Scenarios are a little different. They don't require a ton of unique assets or itemization. What Tom was suggesting is that it's possible we'll have room in Warlords content patches to develop max-level scenarios, if the community strongly feels like they're lacking from the level-100 experience once we're deeper into the expansion's lifespan. . :)

Are scenarios easier to develop than just changing the world?

If they're meant to replace dungeons, they're not very good at that.

If they're meant to introduce lore, why not just put the NPCs and lore out there in the game world?

That's essentially what we've done with the story-driven solo scenarios you'll come across while questing through Draenor. In Mists the 3-player scenarios don't work as well for story devices when most people queue up and want to blast through them like any other dungeon.

how does Blizzard collect customer feedback Tom and you say will be used?

A number of different ways. Analyzing game data gives us some degree of information, but then we also collect feedback from a number of different channels, including these forums. A big reason for community managers existing is to listen to, and engage, players wherever they're talking about the game, and advocate for them when talking to the development team.

My response wasn't the result of meetings. I've been busy with other tasks and just came across this thread this afternoon. It seemed worth jumping in to offer some insights. :)

So i am just curious if you even read this. Do you guys really need to wait for the forums to get flooded with negative feed back about no flying at max level from level 100 players before you start to see maybe we want that option? Or is it really not painfully obvious to you all now?

Don't mistake my statements to mean we design by democracy. We've been over this many times. Draenor content is specifically tailored to gameplay on the ground and flying mounts negate that. We understand a lot of people are really vocal in their disgust with the mere idea of not being able to fly once they reach 100. That doesn't mean we're automatically going to cave on our desire for players to experience the content as it's intended by design.

Everyone has always asked for more dungeons. For some reason in Mists you decided players wanted scenarios instead of dungeons which blows me away. And for a while the PR spin was that we didn't want dungeons and that was the reason you made scenarios.

The Isle of Thunder solo scenarios were freaking amazing though, not even gonna lie, I want more of that .

I'm a part of the PR team. That wasn't even remotely our narrative around scenarios. I'm glad you liked the solo scenarios though! We've carried that concept forward and there are some fantastic solo scenarios with epic story moments in Warlords. :)

...A number of different ways. Analyzing game data gives us some degree of information, but then we also collect feedback from a number of different channels, including these forums. A big reason for community managers existing is to listen to, and engage, players wherever they're talking about the game, and advocate for them when talking to the development team.

Thank you for your reply! Just an FYI, your in- game data shows I participated in TI frequently. I did if for the frequent gear drops that I could mail to all of my alts, not because I enjoyed TI, because I did not like the TI format. Participation does not show like or dislike for any given aspect of the game.

We definitely recognize that, and that's why I said it provides us with some degree of information. If our content is designed such that a player is pretty much forced into a specific type of content in order to get what they want/need, we can't look at that data, say, "look how popular it is!" and call it a day. ;)

But we can parse data in a lot of different ways to get certain types of information that we can then investigate further through other means.

...Thank you for your reply! Just an FYI, your in- game data shows I participated in TI frequently. I did if for the frequent gear drops that I could mail to all of my alts, not because I enjoyed TI, because I did not like the TI format. Participation does not show like or dislike for any given aspect of the game.

As I said in your other thread, the in-game data ALSO shows that you went there only to get geared up, kill world bosses, and then never bothered to go back. It's not like it's a tick in a box: Yup, Nayaga went to TI, check one off the old success box! Their data collection algorithms are, I'm 99% sure, very complex, and capable of distinguishing someone who goes to TI just as little as they can, vs those who go there and spend day after day after day of play time because they like the format. It'll show all kinds of data, outliers, who used the various items you could pick up on the ground, who spent timeless coins, what did they spend it on, what item got used the most, what buff did people prefer from the Shrines, how many times rare mobs got killed, how many players tagged each one, how long boss mobs are up till they die, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

Also, Bashiok states they gather information many other ways too.

Great post, Primington. :)

Though, not to harp on it too much, I'm Zarhym, Bashiok's best man. ;p

The devs need a bi-monthly podcast or something. They have done several things close to this in the past but never for very long. I always enjoyed them very much.

Something in long-form and in depth is what in my opinion is lacking from the communications strategy of you guys. Blizzcon is nice and the trailer release was...interesting....Some solid communication in audio or A/V form would be ideal in my opinion on being able to communicate game design in a more effective way to the people.

Back to topic though, I am very excited to hear that there will be a larger emphasis on dungeons. Dungeons and Raids are my two favorite things about WoW and mmo's in general.

We do agree, although it's not always easy to take developer time for regular installments. Their time is very valuable and they're very busy people. That said, we recognize the importance of keeping the community informed through direct communication and interaction, beyond even doing the promotional press and fansite interviews with each patch cycle.

The CM team has been working on a number of different initiatives to make this more of a reality. You've maybe already seen similar efforts toward this end from the Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone teams. WoW is just a bigger beast that has been around for a lot longer, so it takes time to adjust to new communication plans and mediums. We're committed to the challenge though!

It pretty much speaks for itself. After a certain period of time and threshold you start to tap out your potential audience. While our top concurrent subscriber mark was somewhere above 12 million, so many tens of millions more have played the game at one point or another. We'd love to attract new players to the game and will continue in our efforts to do so, but our focus at this point is more on keeping our current subscribers happy and reacquainting former players with the game.

No, that's not what I meant either, but I'm not going to announce our patch content plans before the expansion is released just to provide some extra reassurance one way or the other.

then your sales are going to suffer if you cant reassure anyone

We're focused on what is coming in patch 6.0.2 and with the release of the expansion on 11.13.14. There's no need to get ahead of ourselves by delving into future patch content now. There's A LOT to see and do in Warlords.

...Don't mistake my statements to mean we design by democracy. We've been over this many times. Draenor content is specifically tailored to gameplay on the ground and flying mounts negate that. We understand a lot of people are really vocal in their disgust with the mere idea of not being able to fly once they reach 100. That doesn't mean we're automatically going to cave on our desire for players to experience the content as it's intended by design.

Well the way you make it seem is you guys planned for no flight from the beginning. If that is the case why not just say so? Why even proclaim at first it would return in 6.1 if the intention is to not have it return?

If it is from fear of people leaving what do you think will happen when you finally say it isn't going to happen? That people will just go oh well I bought it anyways might as well keep playing?

Why not have the courage to say we do not want flight in Draenor at all and it will not return. Be respectful and upfront with your customer base.

Everything you guys have said about flight leads me to believe you have had this decision made from the start.. And the only way flight even has a shot to return is if subs drop. Which to me is a ridiculous way to get you guys to reverse a decision that has been poorly accepted since you stated it.

It's hard to fully anticipate how the community at large will feel at level 100 until people get there and spend some time doing max-level content. We always want to have some degree of flexibility to react to player sentiment at that stage.

...I'm a part of the PR team. That wasn't even remotely our narrative around scenarios. I'm glad you liked the solo scenarios though! We've carried that concept forward and there are some fantastic solo scenarios with epic story moments in Warlords. :)

That's a hell of a lot different than saying players "didn't want dungeons and that was the reason [we] made scenarios." Please don't pretend you can't distinguish between what Bashiok said and what was presented in this thread as having been our "PR spin."

Is it irrational to look at feedback for the last few months, and say "You know? Maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe we shouldn't do it"

Well according to his response to my post. Giving in to player feedback would be "caving". So I am going on a limb and saying yes it would be irrational for them.

All I'm saying is that we have no current plans to allow flying on Draenor prior to patch 6.1. We'll evaluate it further after the expansion is released and leading up to 6.1. That's the same perspective Tom shared in the gamescom interview as well.

But we can't do any of the content while flying, and flying wouldn't be a problem if the design team factored flight into its world design to begin with (i.e. making enemies able to attack airborne players without leashing if its in an area where such makes sense). We shouldn't be punished because they're unwilling, or unable, to broaden the scope of the world past 2" above the floor. There are so many things that they could do to address the stagnancy that they see with their questing and world design, or even with how non-interactive that they feel flight has become (not that I'd agree with them on that point, I personally enjoy zipping my mount around, skimming tree tops or flying through the likes of Nordrassil's roots/Bladespires crags far more than hoppiing a flight path and tabbing out to the forums) that "well we'll just remove flight" should be considered an absolute last resort.

Correct, we don't have flying combat content in Warlords of Draenor. So there's not much more I can speak to on your desires for that, except that we've delivered that feedback to the development team.

One thing we're doing in this expansion to an extent we've never done before is create max-level content areas in our existing leveling zones. We'd like to see how players engage with that content before fearfully just enabling flight due to preemptive forum demand.

Or is it "fortunate" because it solves the "problem" without Blizzard having to spend any money on it.

You really should listen or learn the facts of stuff you post before you remark incorrectly. If you take that video back about 30 more seconds you learn the context of his statement "fortunately that doesn't seem to be the majority" was him saying that they know some people aren't happy with the no flying but that the overall consensus (they say) is the majority are interested in the no flying concept. So yes, in that context I too would say it's fortunate because they know it's a touchy subject but fortunately it's not the majority that are unhappy with it. So before you apply for a job at Fox news don't cut time out of videos to make it sound like you want or if you watch them from another link listen to more of it not just the edit.

On the other hand, since I try to be open minded, I will say I believe a point you could have been trying to reach but went the wrong route was, that yes, it is fortunate that the majority as not unhappy about the change, but why even have that divide. Why not just give flying back so the majority AND the minority are happy. I personally like the concept of no flying to an extent, but I don't know how I will feel when I'm max level and I can never fly really since I will of course have to be in the new zone for dailies/rep runs/etc. I don't believe the "majority" like the no flying considering it's a very small minority that even have access to the beta to experience it first hand and realize the impact. So until I see numbers (which we never will you can't just pull that out of a hat because even then people will argue falsified) I won't believe it. All I know is I read the beta forums daily and I see non stop complaints about certain things and blizzards response is "oh well" basically.

Their last quarter they lost tons of subscribers and tons of money I guess they feel that's okay. Blizzard can't build a game around the community response solely. Everyone has their own opinion so you have to mid-line it the best you can, but when I read posts that are seriously NOTHING but complaints about a certain change and the only adjustment blizzard makes is to the tooltip of undesired ability to solidify their position of ("we saw your posts but nope, this is what we wanna do").

I've never used prepaid cards with WoW. I'm usually monthly recurring sub. Not anymore. I'm not cancelling my sub right now, not saying that. I came back to wow a little over a month ago to get ready for the xpac, but after seeing how boring MoP still was even being gone for months and seeing how blizzard is handling (or ignoring) the community for WoD I'm sticking with a month to month sub only. I have my finger on the cancellation button. I want it clear I do NOT want to cancel. I want to enjoy the game again, but I've lost faith in blizzard and even though I was stoked for WoD and have been playing beta and overall enjoying it, I see too many balls held by blizzard teetering on being dropped. I already pre-purchased so there you go blizz you got my money from that. I WILL be playing WoD on release. I don't expect patches just a month in, but if a month or two in if the responses when it truly is the full community not just a select few beta people or friends of streamers you give a ton of keys to make money off of, are just ignored like now and replied to with one word responses of "nope" by blues I will cancel. What's the business idea. If you receive a complaint then there are 20 more at least feeling the same way. You have my complaint on how you handle people in forums. I won't complain about WoD yet, you still have time to go to finalize and I of course haven't seen it all so I can't be naive and say I know it all, but you also now, with recent events, have my complaint on the fear of trusting blizzard and their commitment to the community and the game and their direction of the same.

Fair enough. Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful post. :)

Good info; but I'm left with one question: Does your game data show how many level 90 characters DO NOT use their personal flying mounts in the game? I ask that because I firmly believe that if you looked at the game data, you would see MAYBE a miniscule number of level 90 characters that don't, and an ocean-full of level 90 characters that do.

That would be data skewed into irrelevance. Most people will take the path of least resistance. It doesn't really imply anything, one way or the other.

BTW, please don't say that it's been designed with ground mounts in mind, beta clearly shows that not to be the case.

Sorry if I've caused confusion in that regard.

I'm not talking about environment design. Yes, the terrain on Draenor has been fully designed such that there are no 2D backdrops like in vanilla WoW. It's technically possible to fly in Draenor zones. I'm talking about many elements of our gameplay being designed for the ground.

It's the whole concept Bashiok explained some months back of not wanting you to swoop down in some massive lair to kill the main bad guy for your objective and fly away, avoiding all the other elements of that area. Our level designers have put a lot of effort into creating interesting, immersive areas of the game world that are fun and sometimes dangerous, yet rewarding.

Allowing flying might well mean that many of those areas are trivialized and then -- again, going back to the path of least resistance -- people will get bored and want more content to breeze past for the end reward.

We don't want travel to be a major burden in 6.0 and we're committed to offering a variety of methods to get you where you need to go in a more timely fashion than we do in places like Pandaria when you're left to "public transportation." But when you do get to where you need to go, you should know you're in a vast and dangerous world, with a lot to do and discover. It's a mix of Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle with even new gameplay elements sprinkled in, most of which just wouldn't be the same if you could fly wherever you want.

Everyone knows that we don't always do what's best for ourselves. I remember in high school I worked out 6 days a week because I had a coach yelling at me. It forced me into something I didn't enjoy but in essence was good for me. Now I'm a fatty mcFatFat, sorry ladies, and we all have this in our life. Think of something you once had a coach, a parent, a friend, whatever pushing you to do something that was good for you but you didn't overall get excited about but you did it because you had that push. It's the same here.

Blizzard has mentioned, in not so many words, that sometimes people have to be pushed into something (not harmful) to get them to try it out and in this case I agree. I'm not a huge fan of the thoughts of no flying at max level but when I first heard the no flying my first thought was Theremore.

You see, I started wow in BC. My boss and colleagues at the place I worked played wow and wanted me to join in. So I talked one of my friends into it as well. I remember my boss on his max level toon just walking, not even mounted, with us to give us a tour. My friend and I were in awe of the [I]actual[/i] WORLD of warcraft. It was a massive game that we could play online in a role playing kind of setting (get it??).

I miss that honestly. I've been jaded since Lich King. Even with these thoughts I will mount up on my flying mount instantly and just fly off somewhere or drop down on an objective then flight form back out when done. We all are a lil bit fatty mcFatFat like me. I'm not saying the no flying will be great, it may flop, and it may change back, but until we have our coach, our friend, our mom, our dad, our local nike representative, saying JUST DO IT.. we will never know. So yeah, I'm not sure how this will turn out, but I won't lie. When I heard about it and it forced me to think back to that walking tour from stormwind, to iron froge, across the pond to theremore, being chased by crocodiles and just laughing with my friend because we, at the time, with fresh eyes saw the world blizzard created, I kind of smiled.

I believe you all should do that. Think back to when you first logged into wow. The first "tour" you had before you worried about xp, and loot, and gear colors. I'm not saying you agree with the no-flying thing, but if you miss that original feeling of new and fresh and seeing it all as massive when you stood there and looked up. Join with me and say "I don't want to be Fatty mcFatFat" and blizzard, as my coach, I may not like it when thinking about it but by god I'll never know if you don't do it. I'll give it a chance, I won't give up until I at least try. So even if I myself moan and groan by you forcing me into it I at least had that chance again to remember the fun I had before I became jaded. We shall see.

And if there is max level questing in zones at 100. Which to me sounds like another way of saying dailies. Why does it matter if I chose to get there by flying mount. I would still have to dismount to complete the objective.

Man, but having to dismount sucks. :p

Only kidding, but as far as I'm concerned you've emphasized my point about a big and dangerous world being largely ignored so you can dismount to check something off your cheat sheet and check out.

...That would be data skewed into irrelevance. Most people will take the path of least resistance. It doesn't really imply anything, one way or the other.

So then, what's the deal?

What exactly, besides providing an artificial barrier within our play time, do you wish to accomplish?

If you're preemptively acknowledging that this is what most people do, not to mention want, then what in the world are we even having this conversation for.

You're literally answering the 6.1 question already, and really just serving to perpetuate the agitation of players.

I'm explaining our point of view, and why places like Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle were designed without flight enabled. We believe strongly that an entire world built like that would be a lot more fun and provide players with a highly enriched set of gameplay experiences; but we'll see how everyone feels about that when level 100 is a reality, and not just a concept, on live realms.

We're not trying to agitate players by baiting you with flight. We do, however, recognize that players have become accustomed to max-level flight over the last four expansions. Re-imagining the gameplay space without max-level flight is a pretty big adjustment for everyone and we're anxious to see how it goes.

These replies from you are getting frustrating Zarhym. We know you support these sorts of posts, we don't need you telling us to read them. Blue posts that don't add anything are infuriating, even more than regular posts that don't add anything.

I'm legitimately sorry you feel that way. Sometimes it's actually helpful for us to acknowledge thoughtful posts by responding to them, whether they're praising Blizzard or being critical of us (I've acknowledged both types in this thread). If it encourages others to make thoughtful posts even slightly, that's not a terrible thing.

I'm a community manager and fellow member of the human race who's here to interact with you, by the way, not a bot meant to treat this place as a dumping ground for PR speak.

Don't mistake my statements to mean we design by democracy. We've been over this many times. Draenor content is specifically tailored to gameplay on the ground and flying mounts negate that. We understand a lot of people are really vocal in their disgust with the mere idea of not being able to fly once they reach 100. That doesn't mean we're automatically going to cave on our desire for players to experience the content as it's intended by design.

Each time the question of flight is brought up it gets mentioned that it won't be added at launch because the entire launch content was designed around no flight even at max level. I was wondering what would make the designers decide to focus so heavily on something that is controversial at a time when you yourself say

our focus at this point is more on keeping our current subscribers happy and reacquainting former players with the game.

The two to me seem completely at odds. Would it not make more sense to design content based on your data that would satisfy a vast majority? And on the side add something new like you did with Garrisons, while not "removing" what is otherwise an expected feature and alienate even a small portion of your player base.

They're not as much at odds as you may think. Again, people will take the path of least resistance to consume the content as quickly as possible. If we design engaging content that can't largely be mitigated by flight, that doesn't inherently mean we'd dissatisfy the majority of players. It'd simply be changing the context in which the content is consumed and I won't pretend to know how everyone will feel about that when it's put into play on live realms around the world.

...I'm legitimately sorry you feel that way. Sometimes it's actually helpful for us to acknowledge thoughtful posts by responding to them, whether they're praising Blizzard or being critical of us (I've acknowledged both types in this thread). If it encourages others to make thoughtful posts even slightly, that's not a terrible thing.

I'm community manager and fellow member of the human race who's here to interact with you, by the way, not a bot meant to treat this place as a dumping ground for PR speak.

Or I'm just malfunctioning.

Frankly I don't see why you even bother, man.

You have to realize by now that you are talking to a group of people that are legitimately looking for ways to not have fun and then complain about it. It doesn't matter what you say or how many ways you word it. They're going to come back at you with the same circular arguments that completely ignore the points being made.

At this point if the entire team caved & said 'fine, fly' they would still be complaining about how long it took (even though the expansion's not out yet).

I know as CM you have to represent the company & can't do anything to drive people away, but just let 'em go. They really won't be missed - because they most likely won't really leave.

Look at this thread, people. Then ask yourselves with a straight face if you can really blame blues for preferring twitter.

There are a lot of great posts in this thread on all sides of the various arguments. Sometimes the more vitriolic/hyperbolic posts stand out more, but you can't let those stand as summaries of the community as a whole. This is something I'd like to think I've learned well over the last 9+ years with Blizzard, but it's still hard not to get caught up in the angst.

When all is said and done I'd still prefer to see passion over indifference. And that's why these topics gets so heated. People are passionate, whether they expose that in constructive ways or not. Either way I'm happy to have had some time today to hear people out and share some insights on behalf of WoW team!

Another aspect of posting here that I can't stress enough: The audience to which I'm speaking is hardly limited to those replying to this thread. We're always thinking of the countless others tuning in to "see what Blizzard has to say today." It's overwhelming and awesome, as is this community. I haven't lost my faith in that concept, because I've been around long enough to witness the ebbs and flows in tone, dialog, passion, audience, and so on. I'm thankful to have been a part of Blizzard for this journey for so long.